Automation in the cattle industry has been established by various cattle management systems that track cattle at various stages within a production cycle. These systems have been developed in response to economic factors in the industry demanding more efficient and cost effective cattle management. In these systems, data is gathered and processed to allow cattle industry personnel to improve their return on investment.
One prior art example of a cattle management system is disclosed ill the U.S. Pat. No. 5,673,647. This reference specifically discloses an automation system for individual animal electronic identification, measurement and value based management of cattle in a feed lot operation. The invention utilizes a computer system integrated with automatic individual animal identification, multiple measurement and re-measurement systems, and a cattle handling and sorting system. Animals are individually identified and measured by weight, and external dimensions and characteristics of internal body tissue are taken. This information is coupled with animal physiological characteristics and historical data allowing the calculation of an optimum slaughter weight, economic endpoint, and marketing date for shipment to a packing plant. After measurement, individual animals are sorted in response to calculations from the measurements. The computer system also calculates each animal's share of total feed intake for the animal's feed group. The computer system stores individual animal measurement, performance and location data, which is used by feed lot management to select animals for shipment from the feed lot for slaughter at the optimum time. Following an animal shipment to a slaughter facility, the identification in the computer system is used to correlate live animal physical characteristics and performance data to the measured and evaluated carcass characteristics data obtained through the slaughter process. Accordingly, a database can be built to more accurately identify and measure value based characteristics and subsequent animals produced and fed for more effective value based selection and management of the animals.
While this reference may disclose a cattle management system for a feed lot operation, the feed lot operation is but just one operation which is included within the overall production life cycle of cattle. More broadly, the cattle industry can be conceptually broken down into two major components, namely, producers and feed lots. The cattle producers include ranch operations that maintain cow herds. The herds produce calves that are raised and typically fed on pasture grazing land. The calves are allowed to reach a certain maturity, and the next phase in cultivation of the cattle is transfer to a feed lot where they are fed on grain and other products until they reach an optimum size for slaughter. Prior to transfer to a feed lot, cattle may also be transported to grower operations where the cattle undergo intensive management for achieving desired growth. The feed lot can be considered a final processing phase prior to slaughter where not only do the animals achieve optimum size for slaughter, but also are closely monitored for diseases or other physical ailments which would prevent them from being timely slaughtered.
Recently, proposed reporting requirements have been developed in the form of a federal unique animal identification and premise identification program. Although this program has not become formalized in federal or state regulations, it is anticipated that the proposed federal program will require that each animal be individually identified by a unique animal identifier which will be used to track each animal from farm to market and market to slaughter. Additionally, identification programs may require a premise identifier for purposes of identifying the premise of origin wherein each production unit (e.g., each ranch operation) would be assigned a unique identifier. Accordingly, the premise number and animal number could be used to record and track all aspects of a production cycle for each animal. This nationwide animal identification system has been primarily prompted by a concern over increased animal disease outbreaks around the globe and public interest in developing an identification program for protecting animal health.
Therefore, a need has developed for a comprehensive data management system where data can be gathered and processed concerning not only the economic factors important to determining return on investment, but also for complying with proposed regulations concerning animal health. More specifically, in order for compliance to be achieved with respect to a national unique animal identification reporting program, a system must exist that provides absolute certainty in identifying an animal during any stage of its production life cycle, thereby necessitating that animal identification be achieved without loss of identification through a tagging device that becomes inadvertently separated from the animal. There are many cattle tagging systems in existence that rely on external or internal tagging devices that can be verified visually or by an electronic reading device. For example, an RFID tag may be attached externally or internally to an animal; however, this type of tagging device can become separated from the animal thereby resulting in the inability to continuously monitor the particular animal.
There is also a need for an integrated data processing system that is based upon centralized storage of information about animals to be monitored, thereby allowing various personnel in the cattle industry to more easily access, transfer and process the data. Currently, many prior art systems incorporate data gathering at various levels in the production cycle of an animal. Data transfer is made more difficult in these systems since data is generated and stored at many different locations and in many different formats. In other words, information gathering and processing is currently very compartmentalized wherein each feed lot, grower, or producer may have their own identification system that does not allow for easy import or export of data.